Eight young parties to clash with four veterans in next Duma poll

Russian officials suggest at least 12 political parties will contest the 2016 Duma elections because of the more liberal requirements of a newly amended law.

The number of parties that can be admitted to the 2016 State Duma
election without presenting additional signatures from their
supporters is four times the number participating in the 2011
polls, deputy head of the Central Elections Commission, Leonid
Ivlev, has told the press.

According to the new rules, introduced at the beginning of 2014,
political parties who want to contend for State Duma seats must
meet at least one of the following requirements: get three or
more percent of the vote in previous elections; get its
representative elected to at least one regional legislature; or
present 200,000 signatures from supporters with no more than 7000
coming from one federal region. Currently there are over 70
political parties in Russia.

The new entrants include such parties as the old pro-democracy
party Yabloko, the pro-business libertarians RPR-Parnas, and
Right Cause, as well as the revived nationalist parties
Motherland and Patriots of Russia, and many others.

Ivlev also said he did not exclude a change in the situation as
the State Duma election approaches – mainly because of two
nationwide election days that could bring more new people into
regional parliaments.

One of these regional polls will take place in the Crimean
Republic that has been recently accepted into the Russian
Federation following a popular referendum. Four Russian parties
will be allowed in the Crimean poll. However, the number of
parties that have already opened their offices in Crimea is eight
or ten, so the situation is also subject to change according to
the deputy head of the Central Elections Commission.

However, politicians told the Nezavisimaya Gazeta that almost
daily changes in the situation prevent them from launching full
scale preparations for the parliamentary elections. Deputy Head
of the Patriots of Russia party complained about frequent changes
in the law, and Boris Nemtsov of RPR-Parnas noted that he could
not even predict if Russia would still have elections in 2016.

Aleksei Makarkin, an independent analyst from the Center of
Political Technologies NGO, agreed that it was too early to
predict the political situation for 2016, but said that smaller
parties could benefit from the new rule that gives more seats in
the Duma to candidates from independent constituencies.Makarkin
said he expected parties like Yabloko and Civil Platform
(pro-business project launched and sponsored by billionaire
Mikhail Prokhorov) to get people into the Federal parliament, but
only on condition that they run as independents.